Is this a workable view on free will vs predetermination?

[Preetom]

7 minutes ago, Arhattobe said:

@Preetom It’s the intellect, that due to various reasons is guided, by others and itself towards the right direction.

 

So we are back to dependent origination again?

[Arhattobe]

@Preetom Dependent origination is true, the Buddha knew what he was talking about, however let me talk about how the Buddha responded to such lines of inquiry.

The Buddha once told people that asked him a lot of metaphysical questions. You are wounded. I am here to give you methods to heal yourself, but you won’t let me until you find out who shot you, what his name was, what country he came from, in what village he was born and etc.

None of that should matter to a man who has been shot. Your wound will still gape whether you know all that information or not. Assuming it’s knowable for someone in your state.

So take the proper steps to heal yourself. If you are asking how, there are many traditions that have holistic, and time tested approaches and paths for you to follow. 

Do that. Have patience.

[Preetom]

@Arhattobe

Thanks for elaborating.

Anyway may I sidetrack and ask something different?

What have you come to understand as the proper translation of 'anatta' through your own realization?

No-self or non-self or something else?

Edited January 4, 2019 by Preetom

[ivankiss]

I'll put it as simply as I can;

There is no free will in the conceptual world.

There absolutely is free will in the actual world.

The choice is always being made right now. There is no time to question. Or hesitate.

 

[Preetom]

4 minutes ago, ivankiss said:

I'll put it as simply as I can;

There is no free will in the conceptual world.

There absolutely is free will in the actual world.

The choice is always being made right now. There is no time to question. Or hesitate.

 

Don't you think you've reversed them? 
If the choice is always being made now, and if there is no time, there can be 'free will' only in the conceptual world when this spontaneous event is separated from the whole, placed on an imaginary line called time and dissected from many other imaginary angles. In other words, only when it is conceptualized

[Arhattobe]

@PreetomUpon non duality, the realisation of and abiding in “nothingness”.

Due to the nature of my experience itself and the path that led me to that experience.

My teachers, advaita Vedanta and etc. I realized something. Something that was thought of and expressed in a contradictory fashion.

“I am eternal and everything” & “I do not exist”. 

I thought nothing of this contradiction. My experience seemed unquestionable. More real than anything I had ever experienced.

Time passed. I got and completed my kundalini process, got involved with esoteric vajrayana practices (that I would highly advise against), and proceeded to realise the massive difference in depth between teachings and teachers due to the immense change in the nature of my non dual experience.

Some teachers and most people not in non duality describe this immense change in depth and experience as a “deepening”.

I can only assume those that say that haven’t been through what I have been through. It is much more. Much much more.

In each state, each level of depth, different conclusions and beliefs, and ideaologies were formed. Different interpretations of my experience. Of reality. Of everything.

The Buddha went through this as well. He realized nothingness. That was the first step in his journey. This realisation wasn’t a glimpse. The full thing, but he was through it. As he saw through everything that came after.

It wasn’t until full enlightenment that he gave up the ever so convincing eternal self up as another delusion. A misinterpretation of the truth of Anatta. 

*sadhguru tone* Anatta means... there is no unchanging thing that can be called a self. This does not merely apply to a human being. It applies to those who say they are the eternal self as well. Such people simply misinterpret and filter the truth of non self through their contracted system and come to a contracted conclusion. Far from true enlightenment all of them.

Anatta also denies the reality of a soul, an individual essence, unlike less nuanced traditions, however it does not deny the reality of seperation, if you live as a separated self. That is your reality. This is just obvious. Denying it is foolish. Your separated self, however, is just a part of a process. Not an unchanging thing. 

That is the problem with some non dual teachings as well. They trade the unchanging seperate self for an unchanging “witness self”. 

Nothing is unchanging within this world. Including any sort of self. Which can become just another thing the seperate self that thinks it’s moved beyond tells itself.

 

Just to clarify and to elaborate :

Most that experience non duality, are still individuals experiencing non duality.  

Non duality is filtered through their karmic conditionings, and produces a state that is very convincing, but is ultimately another delusion. As a result  their conclusions are half baked, their teachings one dimensional.

Only those that completely move beyond the limitations of the karmic body, and it’s filters see the truth of Anatta. 

 

Edited January 4, 2019 by Arhattobe

[ivankiss]

@Preetom The conceptual and the actual can coexist in balance. They do not have to negate each other. That is called eternal peace. Creation then may flow effortlessly, without questioning it's own validity or autenthicity. Free will is all there is.

Or so it seems 

[purerogue]

Non dual state does not prove that we have no free will, if anything it shows everything that you saw before in better light , that your body can operate on its own memory and your ego has its own programming and own thoughts that you are not responsible for , but you can reprogram the way it thinks,

there is also clear difference in in don dual personality that operates as only ego and regular state where you have control .

Edited January 4, 2019 by purerogue

[ivankiss]

@purerogue The less difference in anything the more free will.

Conceptual understanding of actuality may be used as a tool for reaching higher understanding of the infinite one. It's purpose is for creating an experiance of growth and expansion.

One cannot limit the infinite with a conceptual model. Nor describe it's totality. One has to become aware of it's own illusory nature. It's simple as that.

One is a living, breathing paradox.

Nothing is real. It never will be. Yet it will be for all eternity.

Conceptualizing may be also viewed as a process of programming/reprogramming or rearanging/recreating the one infinite.

Eternal growth. Eternal expansion in all directions and dimensions. In all shapes and forms. In all ways and wills. 

Eternal illusion. Aware of itself. Now.

Edited January 4, 2019 by ivankiss

[purerogue]

Nothing is real in more ways then you think, everything is just concepts for awareness that it glues together, there is even no such thing as logic in a way you understand it. 

[ivankiss]

The idea of logic being logical in the first place is illusory. 

When people think something "makes sense" or they agree on a certain "logical" explanation; they simply agree on beleiving and perceiving the same illusion. They collectively hallucinate their version of truth into their experience; thus creating a third reality in which this "truth" creates their common ground. It's funny how serious people get over imagination.

[zambize]

41 minutes ago, ivankiss said:

The idea of logic being logical in the first place is illusory. 

How do you define illusory?  Is illusion illusory, is it illusion then?

[Aakash]

@zambize for me you can define illusory in many ways 

A) something that was never there

B) something that is not there when its meant to be there

C) something that is there but it is  not there 

All three of these things together produce a strange loop paradox in which basically nothing is real 

Try yourself to think of something that is not contained within these categories ? 

This is the totality of self-deception. The only thing we can ever consider real is awareness and so no mind without thought awareness must be truth! by definition of there is something and nothing in non duality 

 

I didn't illustrate this quite well but i hope it helps you guys 

 

 

[zambize]

I appreciate the thoughts, I cant say I'm really settled on the manner for how I would define it or think about it, and I'm not sure I can be even. I just think it's important because we throw the words delusion and illusion a lot, basically at everything relative truth related without seemingly having much of a meaning other than it is not Truth 

[Aakash]

@Yousef ahaha  i didn't even notice that 

[Aakash]

Oops posted in the wrong thread - http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/A_Bird_on_the_Wing/Osho-A-Bird-on-the-Wing-00000002.html i'm currently reading this, its long and i haven't finished but its quite good! 

[zambize]

42 minutes ago, Yousef said:

@zambize there is no difference between llusion and reality..true..or not true.  Ultimately all our conceptual dualities are false. . And this itself is a conceptual label "false"...so it's not. .but it is. .but it is not. .ops!..I guess you know where I'm going with this.

I know where you're going, but once you get to the kind of "well nothing can be said about reality" phase, you lose the pragmatic value that I desire personally, or atleast I dont feel like I can pull anything away from those discussions to use in my life 

[zambize]

Just now, Yousef said:

Your desire is what preventing you from seeing the truth.  The truth has nothing to do with your desires..  It will shatter it all.

By knowing the truth regardless of whether it's pragmatic or not..you get the most amazing thing you can pull from life.

I believe I can fulfill my desires and still see Truth, atleast that's my experience so long as those desires dont cause other people to suffer, I've noticed it aids in my search to surrender more and more to the moment.  This sentiment is shared by enlightened people such as winter knight from what I can tell.  That's not to say that it's a clean argument to say well some enlightened person says the same thing that my experience says, but I think it should make you think about it.  The mechanism at work here seems to be fulfilling your desires at lower stages causes you to just kind of naturally quiet your mind more, and develop higher and higher desires on maslow's hierarchy of needs.  That being said I'm curious on why you believe that desires and seeing truth are mutually exclusive, after all if desires are illusory, how can they prevent you from seeing Truth?

[ivankiss]

2 hours ago, zambize said:

How do you define illusory?  Is illusion illusory, is it illusion then?

You cannot define illusion with illusion. It's a never-ending spiral. 

There is nothing else to compere to the illusion but itself.

You have to merge with the illusion. Become it. Become a mirror. A living paradox.

Whatever you experience is 100% real and 100% illusory at the same time. Now.

You decide.

 This is what humans cannot comprehend. It is the snake eating itself for all eternity.

Edited January 4, 2019 by ivankiss

[ivankiss]

9 minutes ago, Yousef said:

First of all..desires are never satisfied.  LITTERALY so.  It keep growing and flaming by indulgence. .and they die out only by letting go of them. Also it's important to realize that there is no distinction between desires and "baisc needs." Like food and water. .they are actually even worse.  Because one can live his whole life without petty desires like sex and money and fame ..but he can't survive without food and water.  Sour can you see? ..we are more enslaved by our so called "basic needs". Why we have to feel hungry every  6 hours or so?..isn't that a burden?.  The fact is. .we don't need anything . Every cause .will bring an effect. .if you stopped breathing. .you will die. .just that. .you don't NEED to breath.  you need to breathe if you need to live. but what if you don't need to live?  Because you can never die..now to realize that you must awake. 

100% disagreed.

Desire is not an egoic quality.

It is not the same as fear-based needyness.

It is not the same as basic needs, such as: breathing, eating, sleaping, pissing.

Desire is pure and genuine. It is the creator's nudge. A compass.

Has nothing to do with "ego".

The ego is imaginary, just as everything else. 

There are only two sides to the coin.

Fear and Love.

And they are one.

You decide what fits your reality. You choose perspectives. 

Desire does not come from fear. It is in your nature.

Don't think the plant is dumb and does not have a desire to grow, expand. 

Nature desires to evolve. It's just a silent desire.

Edited January 4, 2019 by ivankiss